Port of Seattle

The Port of Seattle is the busiest container port in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. The port in 2015 formed the Northwest Seaport Alliance with the Port of Tacoma so that the two may cooperate on marketing efforts and their future development to better spend limited funds needed to modernize their container terminals so they can handle mega-ships plying the trans-Pacific trades.

Container volumes at the Northwest Seaport Alliance of Seattle and Tacoma increased strongly in November compared to the same month last year, which was when work slowdowns by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union began and terminal productivity plummeted in line with their coastwide contract negotiations.

The revolutionary arbitration system contained in the new West Coast waterfront contract should significantly reduce the number of dockworker challenges involving technology and automation and will help to foster port growth in the coming years, the president of the Pacific Maritime Association said Tuesday.

West Coast ports in September suffered a drop in container volume as well as import market share, but it is too early to determine if this is the beginning of a trend or just a one-month anomaly for ports that appeared to be recovering from the loss of business earlier in the year.

The Northwest Seaport Alliance has outlined the goals and strategies that will guide future development of the Seattle-Tacoma gateway in an era that will be dominated by big ships, mega-alliances and fierce competition among ports for a larger piece of the North American container trade.

The labor strife of the past year was so devastating to West Coast ports and their customers that no one, including the dockworkers union, wants that scenario to play out again in the 2019 negotiations, Noel Hacegaba, chief commercial officer at the Port of Long Beach.

Total international containers handled by the Northwest Seaport Alliance increased 3.7 percent in September from the same month last year as the ports of Seattle and Tacoma continue to regain traffic lost earlier in the year due to port congestion and labor disruptions associated with the coastwide longshore contract negotiations.

Container volumes handled by West Coast ports are returning to historical levels, but the weekly manpower requirements for handling the containers is about 15 percent higher than in the past. That suggests terminal operators are struggling to adjust to the complexities caused by mega-ships, vessel-sharing alliances and chassis shortages.